Ainsworth's Strange Situation

Mary Ainsworth (1970) devised an experiment called the Strange Situation* to study attachment in infant children (*it wasn't that strange!) She wanted to find out how babies showed their attachment to mothers and how they explored under different levels of stress. In the experiment Ainsworth placed a one year old baby and it's mother in a room with toys and watched their interactions both before and after the introduction of a stranger to the room.

In today's lesson you need to find out about Ainsworth's study and complete several tasks.

Now watch the clip below to see the Strange Situation* in action....*still not that strange!

Now open the same google doc you used last week (the one about Harlow) and answer the following questions about Ainsworth's research...

What was her aim? What was she trying to find out?What might her hypothesis have been?What were the IV and DV?Why did she choose to use an experiment to study attachment? Why not just watch mothers and babies in their own homes or ask the mothers about their babies?What kind of data did she collect? (Qualitative or quantitative or both?)What conclusions did she come to? (Think back to her aim and hypothesis, what attachment types did she identify?)Can you think of any problems or weaknesses with Ainsworth's research?How could you improve this research?